｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ ( 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚 ) chapter five — THESE VIOLENT DELIGHTS
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─ 🧳🕸📺📀🦟🌪🎞⌛️ PLATOON. 1966 ｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆
STELLA DREAMS IN NUANCED SHADES OF GREY. First it's the moon, the smoke from a rollup, doting grey-blue eyes. A hazy nurse in white with angel wings and a halo. The silver screen, a starlet's pearly whites in a fading smile. Then it's The Grey Man with his flaking face and his pair of silver scissors. I don't have anything to beg for so really, go ahead. Shadowy figures, gunmetal, arrowheads, ash from burning villages, blade tips, addicts with greying skin.
She's startled awake by the rumble of artillery and B-52s before things can get any more intense, and her bobbled woollen blanket slips down to bracket her waist rather than her shoulders when she props herself up for a breather. It's 3 AM on the digital clock to the left of Marianne (who's fallen asleep reading one of her husband's letters again), but there's still hints of movement outside when Stella cranes her neck to see out of the window. The sheen of sweat on her face coupled with the moonlight that beams into the room makes her look like a ghost.
A moment of deliberation between vices leads her to believe that a cigarette will quell her nerves better than a needle would steady them. She fumbles for the metal zippo and the half-empty carton of Marlboros that have been stowed beneath her pallet. She makes quick work of the creaky floorboards in the open bay and escaping out of the front door, hanging back beneath the awning of the front deck to light her cigarette. The night air is morbidly hot and flushes against her skin, sticking to her like a glaze of honey. To get any further, she has to either use the gate that has squealing hinges or hurdle barbed wire, but she doesn't see the appeal of that. Men are on watch, their fatigue shirts completely unbuttoned to relieve themselves from the heat, wandering around in the dark like lost souls whilst they wait to be dismissed for their nightly four hours of sleep.
"You should be coppin' Z's, Missy, not out smoking cigs at this God-awful time o' night," O'Neil comments from the other side of the barbs. Stella hasn't forgotten that this is the same man who threatened her so viciously for trying to make sure the platoon had the water they needed before their patrol. He has the chevrons for a sergeant, but he doesn't act with the razor-sharp authority of one. "We need our dollies in tip-top shape if they're gonna be patching us up real good when shit hits."
"Well," she sighs, cupping her elbow with her free hand and taking another drag of her newly-lit cigarette. The porch of the barracks is elevated by sandbags, and when she's stood on the wooden deck, she's standing above him. She wonders whether he feels like he's at a disadvantage because he's standing below her. "Those B-52s don't make for easy sleep."
"I get the feelin' we got off on the wrong foot before that patrol the other day," he mentions, and a slight smile crosses his face — his teeth are straight and small, and she can see them whilst he chews his gum with an open mouth. "But maybe I can make it up to you. Bet some company'll help you rest easy."
